On the Importance of Mythomagic in a Healthy Relationship
by omgninetales
Summary: Will missed his chance last time, and seeing Nico two nights ago at the battle where the world almost ended had made him realize two things: life was short, and he wasn't going to waste his time waiting for Nico's icy shell to thaw; he would do whatever it takes to make the boy comfortable with him and to show him that he cared.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: Well, this is my first fic so.. please have mercy. I wrote this in sort of stream of consciousness, I didn't wanna over-think it since I just thought it was a cute idea and wanted it written down. Any helpful feedback is appreciated! Oh, and I don't own any of the characters.

* * *

On the eve of his second day in the infirmary, Nico was starting to get agitated. Just the day before, his healer had been friendly, talkative and had personally made sure Nico had company during most of his waking hours. The rest of the time Nico spent sleeping or resting, he sensed the the sun god's kid's presence near him, and had even had a dream vision of Will falling asleep at his bedside. Now, he very much doubted that vision's validity, and concluded that it must've been (possibly for the first time ever in demigod history) just a dream. Because all day, Will had _definitely_ been avoiding him.

What was worse, Nico suspected that he was hiding something as well. Because every time he caught himself walking into the ward Nico was in, he looked troubled and confused. The source of confusion seemed to be on clipboard he carried around, which he immediately would hide out of Nico's view as soon as he saw him. He'd smile politely and stammer out some excuse about how he had to leave, and he'd promise to come by later in the day. See you soon, he'd say. I'll be back in just a bit!

At first Nico held out hope that he was just busy, but as the day went on, he was starting to feel tired and miserable. He fell in an out of restless sleep, wondering what could have possibly changed in the span of one night to change Will's mind about him.

* * *

That morning, Will woke up with a pain in his neck from having slept on the hard wooden chair next to Nico's bed that night. Morning was being generous, really. The sun was barely rising. The day before, he'd checked in on Nico every chance he got, chatting lightly with him and joking. When the son of Hades had finally fallen asleep for the night, Will came up with excuse after the other to stay in late at the infirmary, until he was the last one left. He couldn't remember falling asleep.

He got out of his chair and stretched, looking at the serene face of the demigod sleeping on the bed next to him. He still couldn't believe his luck. How often do people get a second chance at love?

Love was maybe a big word for this, whatever "this" was.. but it was in the right ballpark. Ever since Will had met Nico, he'd felt this strange fascination with the son of Hades. At first, he thought it was just his curiosity... but as time passed and the rest of the demigods in Camp Half-Blood started to shy away from the brooding demigod, Will's fascination had only grown stronger. The Aphrodite kids made love sound exhausting and nauseating... with all that talk of feeling butterflies in your stomach and being so nervous you could hear your heart beat.. That wasn't what he felt around Nico. Even just observing the lone demigod from afar, Will felt almost at peace. As if just taking in the image of Nico filled him with an inner light that warmed him right up, like having his own tiny sun glowing somewhere along with his internal organs, spreading a glow through his body. He thought he had time to break through through the icy demigod's shell the last time he was in Camp Half-Blood, before he'd disappeared for... Gods know how long. Has it been 6 months? 7? He'd lost count.

Will missed his chance last time, and seeing Nico two nights ago at the battle where the world almost ended had made him realize two things: life was short, and he wasn't going to waste his time waiting for Nico's icy shell to thaw; he would do whatever it takes to make the boy comfortable with him and to show him that he cared.

And this is how Will ended up trying to learn and memorize the rules of this stupid, unnecessarily difficult card game. He knew Nico realized something was up, but he couldn't explain without giving the element of surprise away. Besides, he didn't want the boy to realize how hard this STUPID game was for Will to learn. From what he saw of Nico, the boy didn't appreciate being a burden, and making him feel that way was the last thing Will wanted to do.

He'd woken up that morning and rushed to Percy's cabin, asking the older boy if he knew about anything Nico was interested in. Something to make him more comfortable around Will... Percy was more than eager to help, for some reason. He mentioned Nico's childhood obsession: Mythomagic.

And thus, Will spent the entire day memorizing the rules and cards. He borrowed a manual from one of his younger half-brothers who was so into the game, he barely needed it anymore, and set to work on reading it and trying to understand the rules of play. The manual came along with a list of cards and each character's powers. He wandered the infirmary, checking in on patients while trying to remember that Zeus's lightening bolts do 600 damage, and that Kronos had infinite attack and defense powers.

It took him all day, but he finally got it down. By sunset, he'd finally felt comfortable enough with his knowledge of the game to ask his little half-brother to borrow his Mythomagic cards for the night. He collected the cards and hurried to Nico's ward in the infirmary.

* * *

The only other inhabitant of Nico's ward by that night was a daughter of Hypnos who'd suffered a nasty broken leg in the final battle. She was fast asleep three beds down from Nico. After falling in and out of sleep all day, since he had no sons of Apollo to visit him, he sat cross-legged on his bed, reading a book Jason had insisted he had to read if he was going to join them in this century(it was about some boy wizard who went to a magical boarding school, which seemed a bit unbelievable to Nico). He was a third of the way through it when he heard footsteps approaching, almost at a run. He looked up to find Will Solace, the subject of his discontentment, jogging lightly through the door with an excited look on his face. He dropped a white cardboard box on Nico's bed and sat across from him, on his bed, as if he hadn't been totally ignoring Nico all day.

Before Nico could make a biting remark, Will had already begun speaking.

"I'm so glad you're awake. I've been working on this all day... I hope you like this edition, I mean, I know you're a pro at this, and they said you'd had the Africanus Extreme expansion pack so this starter pack shouldn't be that impressive but I figure, you probably haven't played this in what, seven, eight months at least? I thought you'd enjoy it,"

"What are you doing?"

Will looked up and seemed to realize how he must look. He hadn't slept much at all the night before, sleeping next to Nico's bed, and he'd spent the entire day running through the infirmary trying to learn an unnecessarily overly complex card game while healing minor injuries. And he was getting too excited. A blush crept into his face, but he remembered what he promised himself: to not lose his second chance with this boy who filled him with the warmth of the sun.

"Well... They told me you liked Mythomagic, so I asked around the cabin and Chris had a pack and he let me borrow it for the night, and I spent all day learning the rules.. I thought you'd enjoy a familiar game after everything that's happened."

The dark-haired demigod looked at him thoughtfully for a few seconds, and Will saw the change in emotions on his face. At first, he looked taken aback, then slowly his doubt and mistrust were replaced with a look of gratitude and.. something else, something Will couldn't put his finger on..

Nico grinned and opened the cardboard box. "Prepare to eat dirt, Harp Boy."

Will broke out in a big relieved smile. "Not a chance, Zombie dude."

They played well into the night. The next morning, they were found sound asleep, surrounded by Mythomagic cards by a couple of Apollo girls who were starting to take bets on how soon they'd beat Jason and Piper as the camp's new favorite couple.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: thank you all for the nice reviews! I intended for this to be a one-shot, but I couldn't help but imagine Nico reciprocating and.. well... here it is! I hope you like it. Let me know what you think!

* * *

Nico was half-sure he imagined the past few weeks. Some nights, as he said his goodbyes to the smiling, overly-enthusiastic son of Apollo, he felt so happy it grounded him. He felt tethered to the earth, a feeling he had never realized he was missing. It was as if his entire life, he was more shadow than flesh, and now, Will made him feel solid and real. When he would sneak a look back at the blond demigod's retreating form, he would often get a passing thought wondering if he had actually died back in Tartarus and gone on to Elysium?

The last thing he wanted to do was ruin things.

Over the past few weeks, Nico had felt guilty over his treatment of the thoughtful sun god's kid. It wasn't as if he was mean to him, but he could sense how rough he was around the edges.. how unused to human contact he was. Most of the time, he was able to joke and speak normally to him, but on more than one occasion, shadows would pass over him and he'd feel half-faded again. His mind would flash back to Tartarus, and he would be half-certain that this was simply an elaborate trick of Akhlys, the goddess of misery, granting him this delusion of happiness in some sick, twisted way to cause his fall to be twice as hard. When this happened, Nico's walls went up, his icy exterior returned, and he'd stalk off into his cabin, where he would brood for several hours.

Will, to his credit, never showed if that hurt him or not. He would give Nico his space, but show up, without fail, every morning on his doorstep, holding two fresh fruit smoothies with a green tint. One day, Nico asked him why these smoothies looked green but tasted of berries and pomegranates.

"Well, I see what you eat all day. You never get any vegetables in your system, which is probably why you can't sustain any of your underworld-ly powers for long. I'm almost certain you have iron-deficiency, which is... very difficult to have as a demigod, but it looks like you complete impossible feats every other day so this shouldn't be that surprising," Will nudged him playfully, sending an aura of glowing warmth through Nico's arm where they touched.

"Anyway, I put spinach in this smoothie. It doesn't taste like anything, so the taste of berries and pomegranate overpowers it, but you still get all the nutrients."

"You put spinach in my smoothie without my consent?" Nico interjected  
"I was simply acting on your doctor's orders," Will replied defensively.

"You can't use that as an excuse when you've declared yourself my doctor!" said Nico, exasperated.

"Sure I can!" Will said. He beamed at Nico.

At first, Nico had mixed feelings about this. A part of him wanted to mistrust Will and push him away, while another part, the grounded and solid part, was beginning to trust him. These constant loving gestures of Will Solace were thawing the metaphorical ice fortress Nico had built around himself. And this is why he wanted to make up for his moods.

* * *

"I need you to teach me how to play the harp." Nico said, with a glare that fended off any ensuing jokes.

The Apollo girl looked at him in astonishment. When Nico said he had a favor to ask, this was probably the last thing she could probably have imagined. No, scratch that, this wouldn't even make the list.

Everyone had noticed the sudden interest the son of Hades took in their cabin leader, and they were thrilled about it. In fact, some of them had running bets on which one of the two demigods would make the first move. The majority of the cabin seemed to think it would be Will (they could hardly imagine de Angelo making such a gesture).

Kayla overcame her astonishment, taking care to make Nico feel like he wasn't being judged or ridiculed. It was clear why he, a son of the god of the underworld, who'd never shown any interest in music or any Camp activities before, had decided to learn how to play the harp. And Kayla wasn't about to jinx this. She had her money on Nico, after all.

* * *

Over the next few days, Will began to lose hope. Nico seemed busier and busier during the day, slinking off to gods know where. And worse still, Will was almost sure he saw him running off into the woods with different Apollo girls a few times. He felt miserable. He had definitely misjudged things.. it seemed Nico was only interested in... "infiltrating" the cabin. He would never reciprocate Will's strong feelings.

Still, every morning he woke up early to make Nico a smoothie. Regardless of the demigod's feelings towards him, he still wanted him to feel comfortable and cared for. He knew now the reason Nico left the first time was because he never felt he belonged at Camp Half-Blood. And no matter what, Will promised himself Nico would always feel like he belonged.

* * *

This was so much more than Nico bargained for. How hard could a harp be, he thought? It's just a few strings, right? Wrong.

He was terrible. He felt awful for making those poor Apollo girls have to teach him and hear the monstrosity that was coming out of the small golden harp in his hands. But they insisted he was getting better.

"There's a learning curve," Rosetta had said. She was another daughter of Apollo, whom Kayla introduced him to. She was their resident harp-player. "And you're getting better. You can't hear it yet, but your fingers are picking up on the tunes. I can tell. It'll take time and a lot of practice, but I can get you to play a couple of songs, maybe one by the end of the week."

And so Nico practiced. By the end of that week, he'd grown to despise this small, metallic object. But he carried on. He needed to show Will some sort of gesture. If Apollo's son could learn Mythomagic cards for him, the least Nico could do was learn how to play a stupid harp.

But Rosetta was a patient and talented teacher. And by the end of that week, Nico had learned the chords to one song. He thought the choice of song was fitting, and was sure would get his feelings across to Will clearly.

* * *

That morning, Will woke up miserably. Last night, he saw Nico sneak back from the forest, almost missing curfew, with Rosetta Brown in tow. They both looked ecstatic and even hugged each other. Knowing Nico's aversion to touching, this made the sun inside him feel like it was an imploding star, threatening to create a black hole at any moment.

He closed his eyes and counted to five, dispelling all feelings of negativity from his body. He would get up and make a smoothie, facing Nico with a smile. One, Nico still liked being his friend. Two, at least he was IN camp and not off getting lost in Tartarus. Three, he likes Will's singing, he'd mentioned that. At four, he heard a rapping noise on the window. The sun had been up for only about 3 minutes and 37 seconds (this was just another Apollo thing.. knowing the exact times of the sunrise and sunset). He got out bed slowly and inspected the window above his bedframe. Suddenly, Nico's head popped up, looking shiftily from side to side. He held up a green smoothie and gestured as if to say "meet me outside."

Will rubbed his eyes and put on his sandals, walking outside in his faded yellow pajama pants and white shirt. He felt self-conscious, but didn't want to wake up his fellow campers by getting changed.

"What are you doing here this early? The sun's only been up 4 minute 28 seconds."

Nico looked at him with a nervous smile. "I thought I'd make you a smoothie for a change. Besides, I wanted to show you something, sort of. It's a surprise."

Will perked up but quickly got his emotions in check. It was probably not as big a deal as he imagined, but his inner sun had begun to warm him. He couldn't help but think the nervous smile Nico was simply the surface of a deep well of affection. He grabbed his smoothie and took a sip. "Well, where's this surprise then?"

Nico rested his arm lightly on Will's back, guiding the demigod to the edge of the forest. At this point, Will noticed that Nico was wearing an unusual pack on his back. He refrained from asking, and let the dark-haired boy guide him.

In a small clearing, far off from any sign of campers, there were two rocks big enough to sit on, slightly facing each other, with another third rock slightly off to the side. Nico sat down on one of the rocks and stared seriously at the blond-haired boy's face.

"You cannot tell anyone about this. No one. Okay?" he said, seriously.

"Yeah, yeah, swear on the river Styx and everything," said Will, mimicking Nico's promise from weeks ago. The dark-haired boy relaxed visibly, and a blush began to take over his face.

"So what's the big surprise?" inquired Will with a lopsided grin.

"Well, first off, I wanted to apologize. I know I've been difficult the past few weeks. Being in Tartarus, then shadow traveling across half the globe... I've been having a difficult time. I've let that out on you more than once. And you've been nothing but kind and considerate to me. I'm trying to learn how to... accept and, I guess, reciprocate those gestures."

Will felt his heart swelling with every word. He had severely under-estimated the maturity of this younger boy. Every word seemed purposeful and exact, as if he had thought long and hard about this.

"Are you sure you're Nico, son of Hades, and not some Athena kid? You're sounding pretty wise right now." Will replied in a light-tone, but the intensity in his eyes betrayed how deeply the boy's words had affected him. He looked elated.

"Ha-ha, very funny Sun Boy. What I'm trying to say is, thanks for learning Mythomagic just to play with me. And here's me reciprocating," said Nico, as he opened his funny-shaped bag and brought out a harp which looked like it had been sloppily spray-painted black and grey.

As Will struggled to process what was happening, Nico nervously began to pluck away at the strings. It all made sense now. Rosetta and Nico's hug, Kayla leading Nico to the forest, probably to find a secluded place to practice, and Nico's frequent absences... His heart had definitely swollen to at least twice it's normal size now. He felt like he was positively glowing.

The tune sounded familiar, and he realized Nico was playing the introductory notes to Here Comes the Sun. Will smiled and got up, moving over to sit on the rock next to Nico. The boy sloppy lumbered through the song, missing a note here or there, as Will began to sing the lyrics.

Nico finished off the last few notes with a sigh of relief. He couldn't believe he got through the entire song. He looked over at the boy next to him, who was wearing a big smile and... he was actually glowing?  
"Um, Sun Boy. You're glowing..." said Nico, as he looked at the blond-haired boy next to him who seemed to be surrounded by an aura of gold. Will looked at himself and the glow faded a bit, he seemed confused.

"This never happened before.." he said, inspecting his hands.

"Well... it suits you." said Nico.

Nico had debated long and hard what he would do at this moment. He'd imagined the scenario a thousand times. He wasn't sure what Will's reaction to his song would be, but he hadn't expected him to actually physically glow. He must've really liked it. Or he liked him..

As Will inspected his glowing fingers which were slowly fading back to normal, Nico made up his mind. He was done hiding his feelings for people and living in regret. He placed his hand gingerly on Will's forearm, feeling the warmth radiating from deep inside of him. Will turned up to look at Nico, the glow around his skin slowly returning. Carefully and intentionally, the dark-haired boy placed a soft kiss on Will's cheek, near the corner of his mouth.

Will quickly tilted his head, capturing the younger boy's lips in his. Nico felt more real than ever. He felt so solid, like he could never drift away into the shadows again. As he pulled back, the blond, glowing boy next to him grinned and stood up, extending his hand to him. They walked through the forest back to the cabins, hand in hand, sipping on their smoothies.

* * *

AN: So what did you think? Let me know!


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